Thought on the creative process and everything that pertains to it. That means life in general

Friday, November 17, 2006

Bad day at Black Rock

Today's a pissy day, I woke up in a grumpy mood and have been struggling to get out of it ever since. Brief highlights like puddle jumping with Molly and going out driving for a couple of hours weren't enough to lift me fully out of the doldrums so I'm left mulling over other things.

TCM recently showed Bad Day at Black Rock, which I taped and watched a couple of days ago. Spencer Tracy as the one armed Judo expert, Robert Ryan all creepy and evil, totally excellent film, beautifully filmed and scripted with such economy it's a wonder to behold. Moments like this almost make Ted Turners existence acceptable.

Equally interesting if not as well shot was Vincent Price in "The last man on Earth". I'd never seen this before, only the Charlton Heston remake (Omega Man),and was only used to seeing Price hamming it up in his later roles for Roger Corman etc. Finding the film showing on a crappy little satelite channel was a complete accident but one I'm very pleased about. Price is impressive as the scientist who somehow is immune to the zombie/vampire plague that attacks the rest of humanity and the acting throughout was largely excellent, his vampire obsessed colleague was the only real exception. The print was poor but even so it was a very good movie.

For tonights viewing I have X3, mainly because Karen wants to see it. Hopefully I'll have cheered up by then but if not at least the film will make it harder to upset Karen with my grumpiness.